Meeting World Food Needs Requires Innovation, Open Markets Across Agriculture

Meeting the challenge of global food needs will require both collaborative innovation to increase food production and open markets and public policy to ensure the availability of food to those who need it, DuPont Executive Vice President James C. Borel told participants of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture at its 2010 annual meeting.

“As an industry, our priority should be delivering the best agricultural products in the shortest amount of time to the people who need them all over the world,” says Borel.

By 2011, the world’s population will exceed 7 billion people, and is expected to grow to 9 billion people by 2050.

“Increased sustainable productivity will need to occur as available arable land and resources shift, remain unchanged or, in some areas, decrease,” he says. “Sustainable development integrates social, economic and environmental needs to develop better solutions to today’s problems, while also providing good stewardship of the resources needed for the future.

“Successful collaboration in agriculture reaches across the industry, from researchers to farmers and inventors to exporters,” says Borel. “It begins with incentives, including intellectual property rights and open, competitive markets.

“Open, competitive markets mean that customers have access to new innovations. These markets require both domestic competition policies and, of course, an international emphasis on enabling trade,” he adds.